Violence Still

 Actually, there is not much I want to add to all the rhetoric surrounding the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Judge John Roll and four other victims. Five of the six have died, including one nine year old girl. Paul Krugman writes in the Times today that he was expecting something like this to occur, and I suppose that I, too, have waited for this event. I mean, my life has been punctuated by assassinations and assassination attempts. America is a culture of violence. And the far right—though I suspect they are no longer very far right—uses the language of violence as if it were school yard bullying rhetoric. Sarah Palin’s cross hairs on the district represented by Gabrielle Giffords is how Palin deals with the world. Mama Grizzly? Oh no, I think of her and her accomplices as no more reputable than a lawless gang of bullies. And the attempt of she and her cohorts to distance themselves from culpability for establishing this climate is just as violent as the violence she promotes. She disowns her role in the violence and permits the violence to continue unabated.

The Rabbis say, “If I am answerable for the care of a thing, it is I that render possible the injury that it may do. If I render possible part of that injury I must make restitution for that injury as he that rendered possible the whole of that injury.” Take that, Sarah Palin!! It is the United States that has been injured by her violent stance in the world that she would pass off as cute and appealing.

I do pray for the recovery of Gabrielle Giffords, but I have no hope that the country will ever again recover.